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13:54 GMT, Sunday, 1 November 2009

British pair win second ATP title

Colin Fleming and Ken Skupski

Britons Colin Fleming and Ken Skupski won their second ATP World Tour title, beating Richard Gasquet and Jeremy Chardy in the St Petersburg Open final.

The duo fought back from a set down to beat the French pair 2-6 7-5 10-4.

Scot Fleming and Liverpudlian Skupski are expected to represent GB in their Davis Cup tie against Lithuania.

They have had a fine season, winning their debut main tour title in Metz in September and climbing towards the world's top 50 in ATP doubles rankings.

On Saturday they beat Israeli pair Andy Ram and Jonathan Erlich 6-4 3-6 10-6 in the semi-final - with the Champions tie-break again deciding the match.

Their victory in Metz had come against French pair Arnaud Clement and Michael Llodra - at which point they entered the top 100, and last week they kept up their winning run with victory a a Challenger event in Orleans.

"When we beat the Bryan Brothers at the Aegon Championships, that was when things changed"


Ken Skupski

Earlier in the summer, they had beaten American brothers Bob and Mike Bryan at Queen's before reaching the final in Nottingham.

"Today's match was interesting because it was similar to the Metz final in lots of ways," said Skupski.

"Even though we were down we knew we'd been in that position before and we just hung in there and we actually started to play ourselves into form towards the end.

"It meant that everything went our way when we needed it to and by the end we were playing really well.

"Leading up to the summer we had some success, winning a couple of Challengers, but when we beat the Bryan Brothers at the Aegon Championships, that was when things changed.

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" In Fleming and Skupski we now have easily the most successful active British pairing, and possibly the best since Greg and Tim "


zarrafak

"Our mentality going into matches changed after that and we started to feel like we belonged there."

Fleming said: "Top 50 is the next goal in front of us and then beyond that we'd like try and get some good results at Grand Slam tournaments.

"We've played one Grand Slam together and we lost first round and that's something we really want to improve on.

"Winning tournaments like this one will help with that because it gets us into events like the Australian Open and it means we don't have to wait for Wimbledon.

"The success at those bigger tournaments might not come straight away but we'll keep working hard and keep believing."




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Related to this story:

British duo win maiden ATP title (28 Sep 09 |  Tennis )
Fleming called up for Davis Cup (10 Sep 09 |  Tennis )
Skupski feels on top of the world (11 Jun 09 |  Tennis )

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